Chicago Board of Trade rough rice futures ended firm on Thursday, the opposite trend of all the other CBOT markets. New-crop November rice led the market higher, supported by ideas of fewer rice plantings this spring compared to 2006.
November rice closed 11 cents higher at $11.35 per hundredweight roughly $1 premium to old-crop March which settled at $10.32, up 10 cents. Firms were interested in buying rice calls with strikes from $11 to $12 in new-crop November, January and March, which added support, traders said.
Talk that top rice producer Arkansas may prevent farmers from planting a rice variety carrying the LLRICE601 gene trait, Clearfield 131, supported new-crop November. Clearfield 131 is resistant to the red rice weed one of the most troublesome weeds found in US rice fields that reduces yields and crop quality. If farmers are not permitted to use the variety, they'll be forced to plant another crop, like soyabeans, to prevent the weed from spreading, analysts said.
That would be on top of the cut in expected rice plantings this spring compared to 2006 as high corn and soyabean prices were attracting farmers to plant more row-crops, he said.
Arkansas planted 1.4 million rice acres in 2006, or 50 percent of the total US plantings. Weekly export sales were viewed routine with year-to-date sales continuing to lag a year ago. The US Agriculture Department said rice export sales last week were 66,500 tonnes, 56 percent below the previous week. There were 611 March deliveries overnight which were met by a strong stopper. The ADM house account took 425 lots.
In world news, the Philippines said its unmilled rice harvest would rise 5.87 percent this year to a record 16.23 million tonne, but not enough to feed its growing population. However Indonesia expects unmilled rice production to fall 2.3 percent to 53.13 million tonnes this year due to a decrease in plantings.
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